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The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) has launched a new blog, called Inquiry, that will tell stories about the research being done at the University of Minnesota. From the OVPR announcement: "Inquiry is designed to promote U of M research excellence and innovation to a broad audience and tap into the collective knowledge of our research community to generate and share new ideas."

Inquiry replaces two former OVPR blogs, Research @ the U of M and Business @ the U of M, and will be a unified channel to highlight exciting stories about University research, innovation, entrepreneurship, partnerships, and University-wide collaboration.

The OVPR produced a short video about the importance and value of University research, which is available on YouTube. Why University Research?

The research of several MSI Principal Investigators appeared recently in the journal The Scientist. The article discussed the pathogen Ug99, a highly virulent strain of stem rust, a fungus that destroys wheat (Kerry Grens, "Putting Up Resistance," The Scientist, online edition, June 1, 2014, downloaded June 1, 2014).

Professor Forester and his research group at MSI are developing a Decision Support Tool that will allow biologists and resource managers to make predictions about populations based on multiple sets of assumptions, evaluate the outcomes, and then make informed management decisions. They are especially interested in large ungulates, such as moose, and invasive biofuel crops. The work is computationally intensive, requiring the use of MSI.

MSI Principal Investigator Martin Saar, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, spoke at Northwestern University's 4th Climate Change Symposium in May. The conference included experts from the U.S. and Canada, who discussed "The Future of Carbon." Professor Saar spoke about his research, which includes geologic CO2 sequestration and CO2-based geothermal energy extraction reservoirs. He uses MSI resources to study fluid flow, chemical reactions, and the coupling between the two in geologic porous media. The conference was written up in Medill Reports, a journal of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.